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Metronomy – O2 Academy 2 Oxford – 20/04/2011

I’ve only recently become aware of Metronomy, primarily via the single ‘The Look’ which has received quite a lot of airplay on BBC 6 Music and their recent session for Lauren Laverne. The session interested me enough to see if their new album ‘The English Riviera’ was on eMusic. Sadly it wasn’t (Spotify to the rescue – for now anyway, but that’s something for another post) but the eMusic artist page *does* have upcoming gig listings and I noticed they had one coming up in Oxford so I thought ‘what the hell’ and bought a ticket.

Support were provided by Keyboard Choir (not very interesting Orbital copyists) and Ghostpoet (pretty good UK rap – reminded me of Roots Manuva). Metronomy themselves were very good. The obvious comparison is LCD Soundsystem (a band I regret not catching live before James Murphy decided to do other things), though I think Metronomy wear their 80s influences a bit more on their sleeves (or should that be chests?). Only slight criticism I would have is that its fairly unrelenting pop-funk. There was very little in the way of ebb and flow to the set which, given the heat of the venue (for some reason O2 Academy 2 is only air conditioned at the bar) this made for tough going towards the end. That aside I was impressed. The rhythm section were tight (plenty of John Taylor-style slap bass), the songs were catchy, Joseph Mount is an affable front man and the chest lights and dancing were just the right side of gimmicky. Definitely a band to watch.